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Today, I bring you a guest post from my friend and fellow Kindle All-Stars writer, Tony Healey. Tony’s got a great, easy way for you to help out a little girl with cystic fibrosis. Well worth the minute or two! Here’s Tony to tell you more:

TONY:

At the beginning of this year I released a charity anthology, featuring the work of 16 fantastic writers and the artwork of the legendary Bruce Pennington, with all proceeds to go to The Cystic Fibrosis Trust (we’ve not hit enough for a donation yet – but we’re getting there). [Editor’s Note: This is Edge of Oblivion, the anthology I told you about here.]

The original inspiration for that collection of stories – and for doing something to raise funds for CF in the first place – is a little girl called Tilly.

She has a chance to win a free holiday with her Mummy and Daddy next year, but she needs your help. It’s very easy and will only take 2 minutes of your time.

To celebrate National Poetry Month — which is now — craftsy knitter, editor extraordinaire, and Kindle All-Stars La Consigliera Laurie Laliberte is blogging various poets during the course of this month. And, much to my delight, she has chosen to feature me!

So, head on over to Laurie’s Big Girl Blog to read the nice stuff she says that makes me blush, as well as my poem entitled “night sunshine.” Please enjoy, and do feel free to comment!

These are great reads, y’all. There’s a tremendous amount of talent in this collection. And the best part is that none of the authors or editors are getting a cent for it: All proceeds from the anthology are being donated to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

In case you got distracted by something shiny (which could cause a slight wavering of your attentiveness): The Kindle All-Stars: Resistance Front project aims to showcase indie authors in a speculative fiction anthology, while doing something cramazing, like, oh, donating all of the anthology’s proceeds to charity.

This really flips my bangerang switch. It also swings my verge. Especially since I get to be part of it.

You, my dearest inklings, already know quite a bit about me, if you’ve been following my bloggèd ramblings (see parenthetical content of first paragraph). You might not, however, know anything about any of the other authors whom Kindle All-Stars El Presidente Bernard Schaffer dubs “the punk rock of literature.”

To help you get to know everyone better, punk rocker Tony Healey has engaged in a copious amount of interviewing of the rest of the troupe. He’s publishing all of the interviews on his blog; for your convenience, they are all listed right here.

As I’m re-checking the interview posting schedule Tony sent out to all of us, I see that my interview is up for publication tomorrow. So I guess this blog post coulda waited ’til then. But there’s nothing like getting word out early, right? Or late, from other punk rockers’ perspective. *sigh* Well, anyway, I’ll post the link to my interview when it goes live tomorrow.

As I write this, I am watching the kids get off the bus at the stop outside my house, and tears are streaming down my face.

I had decided not to write about this. I had decided that I would put out a few links on Twitter and Facebook, briefly state my opinion, stop reading news articles, and turn my attention to happier things in order to preserve my sanity.

But I can’t.

My heart hurts too much, and for this moment, I cannot look away.

When, as an adult, you come come across another adult raping a small child, you should a) do everything in your power to rescue that child from the rapist, b) call the police the moment it is practicable.

There was the rapist. There was the 28-year-old man who witnessed the rape. There was the father of the witness. There was the coach who heard it from the father. There was the school administration who heard it from the coach.

Not one of them stood up and stepped between that child and his tormentor. To be clear: A 67-year-old man was anally raping a 10-year-old boy in a university locker room shower. Within days, at least five people knew about it, and not a single one of them reported the rape to a law enforcement agency.

The silence of these men rips my heart to shreds.

Now, there is a campus full of at least 1,000 university students who rioted over the firing of their beloved coach — their beloved coach who knew his friend and co-worker was raping young boys and did nothing to stop him.

Some of these students, according to the sister of the boy in the shower, are turning that boy’s torment into a joke. They talk about getting “Sanduskied.” They laugh.

Don’t tell me that this is unlike German civilians ignoring clouds of ash above a concentration camp.

Don’t tell me that this is unlike audiences of young Americans in the 1990s, laughing at the nakedness of imprisoned Jews in the movie “Schindler’s List.”

Don’t tell me dear old “JoePa” did what he could by reporting the incident to his administration. Don’t stand there and tell me he fulfilled his legal obligation by telling the university.

What of his moral obligation?

What of these men’s collective moral obligation to that child?!?

To that child, the report of the rape to university officials means NOTHING. They left that child in the cold, and the other victims with him. They turned their backs on that child and shook hands with the man who raped him.

Oh, cowards.

How can you justify remaining silent when the blood of the innocent calls out for justice?

Want me to get graphic about it? How about the anal blood of the innocent?

How can you justify the culture of silence surrounding this horror?
How can you justify the seed of awful darkness that grew in this silence?
How can you justify supporting a man who supported a child rapist?How can you make jokes about the rape of a child?
How can you look away?
HOW CAN YOU WITNESS THE RAPE OF A CHILD AND LOOK AWAY?

It is a small, small thing I do, donating a story to help prevent the rape of children. I feel humbled and thankful that I can help even just a little bit. I pray that I will have opportunity to do more.

But my small contribution doesn’t make my heart ache any less.

I feel like I’m in mourning.

Either in the near future or in the distant future, the rapist and his accomplices in silence will pay for what they have done. In the meantime, there are at least several thousand young adults who care more about their school’s and one man’s reputation than they care about the sexual torment of at least 8 innocent children.

That breaks my heart into more pieces than can be put back together right now. God, please save all of us from this corrupt generation.

As I write this, I am watching the kids get off the bus at the stop outside my house, and tears are streaming down my face.

I’ve known for just over 48 hours, and I’m sure it hasn’t really sunk in yet. But, lack of sink-innage notwithstanding, I’m a-gonna blare it out to the world anyway:

Around Christmas of this year, I shall have a story in the SAME short story collection as HARLAN ELLISON and ALAN DEAN FOSTER.

As my friend Josh (who’s gonna have a story in the same collection) says,

“This is what we in the business call a pretty big deal.”

In case you’re unaware, dear inklings, Ellison and Foster both are so well-known in the sci-fi world, it would be downright silly for me to tell you about them here. Really that’s why God gave us Google and Wikipedia. Thus, if you go get Googwikified over these two gents, you’ll find out everything you need to know.

But. I’ll say this much: Ellison has been in the writing biz since the late 1950s, and Foster made me fall in love with him when I read his “Pip and Flinx” novels as a teen. If that gives you even a slight reference point for my excitement, we are good to go.

Sometime around three months ago, Bernard put out an intarwebz call for short stories: He wanted to do a ground-breaking anthology to showcase independent authors in today’s e-media. The “resistance” aspect of the project refers to our collective determination no longer to let the traditional publishing model squelch our writerly voices. Bernard writes,

“Whole generations of authors have been lost to us because they could not penetrate the murky swamps of corporate publishing. I imagine all the works of art that we’ll never know of simply because the vicious cycle of query-letter, agent, synopsis, publisher, book-seller, and eventual consumer did not work out for that individual.

“When an industry coins a phrase like ‘Slush Pile’ to reflect their opinion of where your work belongs, you get a pretty clear idea of your place in their world.”

You might imagine, my darlings, that every word of this resonates with me. : ) Not only that, but the proceeds of the project all go to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. These people find kidnapped kids and fight child porn. No question that I can get on board with that!

So. Longish story shortened, I finished up the short story I’d been working on and sent it in to Bernard. He sent it back with edits, and I had a mild freak-out while my writer self dealt with the knowledge that I’d not only sent my work to a total stranger, but now he was asking me to change it. And I mean change it. The dude wanted me to clip an entire thread from the story. And it was a thread I happened to like. Zoinks.

In the meantime, I found out that Ellison and Foster both had donated stories to the project. So now, if I got in, I’d be getting in with Ellison and Foster.

Have I mentioned that this is kind of a big deal?

Here I am, trying to edit and re-write a story, and the deal just keeps getting bigger and bigger. No pressure, right? I had to get over myself — no, really, I had to get over my fear. Why does it always come back to that?

Fear holds me back again and again. This time, it was fear of rejection…and maybe even a little fear of success. I have no idea where all of this might lead. But some possible future paths aren’t necessarily grand.

But I sucked it up, did my re-write, sent it back to Bernard — and waited. Ten days, y’all. I kept telling people it wouldn’t ruin my day if my story got rejected in the end…but that was only a half-truth. I wanted this bad. And during those 10 days, the fear kicked in again.

I rode it out. Did other stuff. Painted a crimson dragon. Published a whole magazine. You know, the usual. ; )

Then, two nights ago, the final participant announcements rolled in over Twitter, and I was on the list. Even better, Josh was on the list, too. Spider Robinson Wisdom ruled my personal celebration:

For the record, applying Bernard’s feedback to my story was fun, once I got over myself. (Strangely enough, I’m wanting to paraphrase Pumbaa from The Lion King: “once I put my behind in my past”; but I don’t think it really applies here.) As I trimmed and re-wrote and copypasted, I saw a startling new shape emerge from the story…and it was a shape I very much appreciated.

It was the shape of a story that was better for the changing. Having an editor’s feedback made me a better writer for the story. Who’d a-thunk? ; )

My horror short “If This Were a Stephen King Story” will appear in Kindle All-Stars: Resistance Front in December 2011.

“Few projects slung my way, these days of electronic idiocy and bad writing, can perk me up and get the fireworks. This is one of the best, sweetest ideas I’ve heard in years. Nothing but the smiles of Success are due the project, the people putting it together, and the good kids who will benefit from every penny garnered. I am 100% and a bag of marmosets behind it!”
— Harlan Ellison.

“Growing up, I had access to all the books I wanted to read, and they made my life. This is a project to benefit kids who have nothing. I can think of no better cause.”
— Alan Dean Foster

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Courtney Cantrell writes fantasy and sci-fi, reads all manner of books, has lost all ability to watch regular network TV, and possesses vorpal unicorn morphing powers. She is made mostly of coffee and chocolate.